The necessity to handle large volumes of articles, such as milk containers or other dairy product containers, which have been distributed in one way or another for many, many years from central establishments to outlying communities and individuals, has provided many problems, and although not limited to dairy products, particularly important with respect thereto since the current form of package in which the dairy products are contained, fluid dairy products primarily, is a coated paper carton or the like.
Such coated paper cartons which may be of any preferred manufacture and in most cases are rectilinear with the top closed to form a ridge like closure portion, are handled in various ways in bulk so to speak but usually in cases, the cases in many instances being made of wood, wire, or plastic, whether reinforced or not and which require substantial cost to construct, maintain and necessarily to return to the origin, or to come central place where they may be distributed for re-use.
Where such cases have been used, the initial cost thereof is substantial and in an endeavor to overcome some of the problems involved, molded cases of one kind or another such as fiberglas and fiberglas composition together with various means to rigidify the same have been adopted and are used.
All the foregoing however involve the necessity to clean, and return, as well as to maintain and protect because of the investment therein and to prevent them from being pilfered and used for other products than those for which they were intended.
There are other ways of handling cartons of milk or milk products or other products in addition such as placing several in corrugated or other paper cartons which however require substantial cost to assemble and necessarily result in loss since they are damaged in transit and thus not reusable in the ordinary sense, for the original purpose particularly since they are often times soiled and otherwise damaged which prevents their re-use per se even if certain government regulations are complied with.
With the foregoing in mind then it is obviously desirable to provide some other means of transporting cartons of milk or milk products or even other kinds of products in a way which will overcome some or all of the problems suggested by the foregoing which in summary may primarily reside in the cost of handling and any overall reduction in such cost will obviously be of advantage not only from the standpoint of conservation of material but of effort and actual space if possible so as to reduce such space as well as the ever present necessity of providing the usual power and raw material which is dependent in many cases upon the supply of oil or oil derived products ultimately.
The present invention substantially reduces the objectional factors which are suggested in the foregoing outline, and provides additionally certain improved handling characteristics, residing largely in the fact that a light weight relatively inexpensive shipping package can be provided by the concept hereof which involves the provision basically of a pair of tray-like members which are in turn formed of plastic such as polypropylene or similar plastic which may be molded or formed in various ways, and which take advantage of some of the characteristics which are present but which are accentuated and changed by the arrangement of the various elements thereof to provide a package which is light, can be re-used, may be disposed of, or otherwise treated in a substantially different manner from common presently known ways of shipping products which involve uniform or similar substantially identical containers or articles.
Turning now to a consideration of the details of the invention, the same are described in the appended specification, in the various configurations described, and are shown in the drawings appended hereto which are embodied in figures as follows: